The journey begins...again!

Back in 2023, we tried to fly around the world, and there was a little bit of a hiccup as we tried to leave our first waypoint on to our second…something about a passport and a discrepant stamp – you can look back at the blog for more information (https://billandtheresa.blogspot.com/2023/12/day-4-failure.html ).  Well, we have NEW passports now, so we locked in on a set of flights and off we go!!

The second plane will be ours...hard to see from the lounge!

Today, we fly to Tokyo, arriving tomorrow, and on to Saigon!  But more on that later.  As we’re hopscotching across the globe, we don’t want to be checking bags, so we culled everything down to fit in one roller board (each) and one backpack (each).  Alas, the roller boards are each 24 lbs, and the backpacks are 16 and 18 lbs!

Also, there is a bit of ludicrisy.  Years ago, Theresa found her favorite luggage made by eBags.  Ultimately, we ended up with a few of them.  They are really good, solid but light, good use of space and features, etc, and have a LIFETIME warranty.  Then they were bought out by Samsonite and promptly closed.  So, a decade of use on all manner of surfaces (pebbles, cobblestones, asphalt, and a few smooth ones) took a toll and the tires started splitting.  Yeah yeah yeah…go buy another bag.  But we’re not the “buy new” type (reference another travel failure… (https://billandtheresa.blogspot.com/2024/08/double-landing-gear-failure.html)  so we took two bags, and combined parts to assemble a complete bag with mostly good wheels.  Mostly, because well, one of the four isn’t right.  So, we put new tire covers on them.  But it is not wobbly and the tires rub on the support, so it drags a bit.  Oh well.  In two weeks, it will either be funny or annoying, but we’ll be in nice planes regardless!  (Theresa note – I tried to get him to buy a new suitcase weeks ago!)